


ten years

by disheveledcurls



Series: so many kinds of yes [1]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, addiction mention tw, food mention tw, tattoo mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9789236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disheveledcurls/pseuds/disheveledcurls
Summary: “I did not claim to be an owl.”“Okay.”Or, Joan and Sherlock and the Case of the Anniversary-Themed Matching Tattoos.[Future AU + Established relationship AU, because I can.]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yonderdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonderdarling/gifts), [14winters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/14winters/gifts).



“WATSON.”

 

Joan didn’t bother to move. She was used to Sherlock bellowing her name in varying degrees of urgency from the other end of the house by now. If it was really important, he’d be coming around to get her eventually. It was well after dinner, she was lying in bed reading the Frida Kahlo chapter of a book on revolutionary twentieth-century women, and she wasn’t getting up, no matter what Sherlock had in mind. She was done for the day. _Finis_.

Sherlock burst through the door a moment later and walked over to her in a couple of brisk, imperious strides. “Watson, I was calling you.”

“I’m not talking to you across different floors,” she retorted gently, eyes still focused on her book. It wasn’t the first time she’d explained this to him, but then again, that was the trick to living and working with Sherlock Holmes: patience, and a knack for negotiation, were key. “Don’t be cranky. We can talk now.”

“I’m not cranky.”

She turned the page and arched her eyebrows in disbelief. “You’re always cranky.”

“I am merely particular.” Sherlock rocked back and forth on his heels where he stood at the foot of the bed and gave a dismissive flicker of his left wrist. “Watson, are you aware that this year marks a number of important anniversaries in our lives?”

Joan hummed her agreement and pushed her reading glasses back over her forehead. Since she’d lost track of the bookmark at some point — as usual, it had probably ended up somewhere under the sheets or between the bed and the wall— she resorted to folding over the corner of the page she was on, an old habit her mother always chastised her for. “Strange of you to bring it up. I practically have to drag you to go get your anniversary chip every year.”

“I’m not referring to that, though you are right that, barring any unexpected unpleasantness, I will next summer have achieved seven years of sobriety.”

“You’re gonna be fine,” she reassured him automatically, as she set the book on the bedside table. There had been times in her life when she had feared for him, but the last few years had been good to them and Joan had timidly begun to hope that this could be long-term — a hope not for infallibility, per se, but for a kind of new normal where everything wasn’t permanently at risk of falling apart. She understood perfectly that addiction wasn’t something that could be achieved or checked off a “To Do” list, but she wanted to believe, after all this time, that she knew her best friend. That if he were struggling again, and for some reason tried to hide it, she would know immediately. Joan really, really hoped she was right about that. The alternative —deluding herself with illusions of progress while Sherlock suffered alone— was unacceptable. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be flippant. But I do believe in you.”

Sherlock bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I appreciate that. But it’s not what I came to talk to you about.”

Joan pulled a small bottle of moisturizer out of a drawer and began to rub some into her arms. “What is it then?”

“It’s our fifth anniversary this year,” he said quietly, not looking at her. “Ten since we first met.”

“And you just turned fifty,” Joan quipped innocently. When Sherlock looked up at her, pretending to be very offended, she stuck her tongue out at him cheekily.

“How dare you, Watson. I’m barely forty-seven years young.”

Joan let her lips curl into a villainous little smirk. “So that means you’re totally not too old to ride the Cyclone.”

Sherlock grimaced with distaste and apprehension. “Why must you always bring up that ghastly roller-coaster?”

It was true that Joan teased him about the Cyclone at least once a year, but she had never actually made him ride it with her, knowing rollercoasters to be one of the very few things that genuinely terrified him. Still, when they’d stayed in Santa Cruz for a few days during their honeymoon, Joan had taken him to see the Giant Dipper and afterwards she’d won him a Golden State tee in one of the boardwalk games. She’d even read up on the history of the park beforehand to regale him with fun facts during their visit. She couldn’t guarantee that Sherlock had been very impressed, but she still remembered that day very fondly. “Alright, alright. No Cyclone. You were saying?”

“I believe such a special occasion calls for a special kind of remembrance.”

Joan couldn’t help teasing him again. “If this is about me coming out of a giant cake dressed like a dominatrix, forget about it.”

Sherlock frowned deeply. “One time I dare make a joke and you punish me thus even years after the fact.” Joan saw his face soften when he realized that she was shaking her head and holding back laughter. “Huh. You never tire of making a fool of me, do you, Watson.”

She shrugged helplessly as laughter kept bubbling out of her. “Sorry. I’m pretty sure this can’t be news to you though.”

“Watson, you accepted my proposal of partnership by hurling a basketball at my face. I have no expectations of ladylike docility on your part.” He gave a small smile as he tapped his fingers on his thighs. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Joan mirrored his smile and held his gaze and for a long moment they both stayed completely still, communicating in that conspiratorial, wordless language they had developed over the years. _I like you so much, you big dork_ , Joan thought, very childishly and very loudly, and, curiously enough, when Sherlock looked at her like he was doing now, she felt like he was telling her the exact same thing. “So, about this anniversary,” she said eventually, breaking eye contact and running a hand through her hair. “Are you finally gonna get me a dog?”

“What?” His brows furrowed, as if he couldn’t understand why anyone would want such a prosaic pet when you could have bees and turtles. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Bummer.” She pouted a little. “Okay, what do you have in mind?”

Sherlock hesitated, shoved his hands into his pockets and half turned away. “Have you ever given any thought to matching tattoos?”

Joan couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows all the way to her hairline. “Wow. That sounds like something you’d hate.”

“So was marriage before I met you,” he countered quickly, as if it embarrassed him to say it out loud. He jiggled one leg nervously. “It would be my honor, of course, to give you your first ink, but I would understand should you wish to seek the services of a professional.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “What and were,” she demanded pragmatically.

Now Sherlock was staring at the floor as if he’d never contemplated anything more fascinating. “Bees,” he mumbled, a bit shame-faced. “Haven’t decided on the placement yet.”

Curious as to what exactly he was picturing, Joan narrowed her eyes at him as she tried to read his expression and the tells of that wiry, angular body she knew as well as her own. “You think I should get box bee and you wanna get the _Watsonia_ ,” she ventured a moment later.

One corner of Sherlock’s mouth curled faintly at that. (Joan knew he found it funny that she still used the pet name “box bee” to refer to _Osmia avosetta_.) “Admirable deduction, Watson.” He didn’t say anything else and Joan realized he had to be waiting for her answer.

Joan watched him for a moment and nodded to herself a few times. She didn’t really need to think about it all that much. “Okay,” she said pleasantly. “Let’s do it.” Sherlock perked up and turned sharply to look at her, his eyes wide with curiosity, so she went on: “I think I should get it on my right arm and you could get yours on your left one or viceversa.” She bit her lip pensively. “Actually, I think I prefer the wrist for mine, but we can go over the details later.”

Sherlock watched her raptly for a moment, clearly processing what had just happened. “Left arm…” He stopped and actually examined his arm for a suitable location, fingers ghosting lightly over the tattoos already covering most of the space. “Left forearm, most likely, for me, right wrist for you. That could work, Watson, I like the idea.”

Joan smiled drowsily at him and patted the mattress next to her, but Sherlock spun on his heel and started pacing in front of her bed, probably brainstorming designs for the tattoos. She flopped back onto the bed and stretched, getting used to the idea she had just agreed to, as preposterous as it sounded. She almost laughed when she remembered the time she’d secretly saved enough for a tattoo she wanted to get between her shoulder blades only to chicken out at the last second. She must have been, what, fifteen? She couldn’t even remember what she’d wanted to get —certainly not a bee— but she was sure her mother would have freaked if she’d actually gone through with it. Now, though, she was anticipating showing the little bee outline to her nephews, who loved animals more than anyone she knew and who were already promising to be veterinarians —or biologists— when they grew up. (Joan made a point of showing them the hives every time they visited, and Sherlock had even ordered two small beekeeper’s suits and he kept them stored in his old closet, waiting for the day Gabrielle finally gave in and allowed her sons to “get properly acquainted with the _savoir-faire_ and practices of a modern urban beekeeper,” as he put it.)

For any other couple, the appeal of placing the tattoos on opposite arms would be knowing that the tattoos would overlap whenever they held hands, but Joan and Sherlock never did, not even on their wedding day, when, after all was said and done, Sherlock had kissed her chastely and jutted out his elbow for her to take —as he had many times before and would many times after— and they had walked arm in arm down the aisle of the city clerk’s office, and down the halls out into the busy streets bright with sunlight. But she thought the concept sort of worked anyway: Sherlock would see hers often, whenever she checked her wristwatch or hailed a cab or rolled up her sleeves to handle forensic evidence; she would see his when he stress-baked or walked around the house shirtless, whether for experimental or yoga-related purposes...  and on those rare mornings when she woke to find him asleep on her arm, there they would be again, husband and box bee in a single glance. Convenient.

“Sherlock?” she said, when a few minutes had passed and he still hadn’t said anything else. “Now that we’re on the same page, can we agree to discuss it some more later?”

Sherlock stopped pacing and frowned at her. “Watson, we are in the midst of a creative process. We can’t abandon—”

“It’s late,” she interrupted. Time to put her foot down about the Sleeping Issue again, seemed like. “We can come back to it.”

He pursed his mouth, mildly frustrated. “Fine. I will allow you a modicum of rest.”

“You need to sleep too,” she pointed out quickly, before he had the chance to walk out on her. “You’re not a robot.”

Sherlock cast his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “Would that I could replace this faulty vessel with a more dependable conveyance platform for my consciousness.”

She clicked her tongue and shook her head, refusing to even acknowledge the possibility. “Hell, no. They wouldn’t get your nose right and that’s just unacceptable.”

His mouth twitched in amusement, as always when she expressed a preference for any part of his personality or physicality. Contrary to popular belief, she had found out, over the years, that although possessed of a significant ego when it came to his intelligence, Sherlock Holmes was actually really bad at accepting genuine compliments from the people who loved him. “Watson,” he argued, a bit sadly, as she wiggled into her pajama shorts and crawled inelegantly back under the covers, “if I were an android I wouldn’t be an addict.”

“If you were an android, you wouldn’t be you and that would be a damn shame,” she blurted out, thoughtless, then twisted her mouth apologetically and raised a hand in a preemptive placating gesture. “That was unfair. Sorry. The fact that I like you just as you are isn’t more important than your feelings about your own pain—”

 _"Watson._ ” Sherlock breathed out audibly, shuffled on the spot and squared his shoulders. “I didn’t take offense.”

Joan turned off the lamp on the bedside table and shrugged even though he couldn’t see her. “Still.”

“We both spoke in jest. Don’t worry so.” There was the sound of feet padding away, and then the door opened a sliver, the light from the hallway barely outlining Sherlock’s profile. “Good night, Watson.”

“Don’t go.” Staring him down wasn’t as effective in the dark, but Joan tried anyway. “Come and get some sleep now.”

Sherlock gave a brief shake of the head. “I’m not tired yet. Perhaps at noon.”

Joan snorted with laughter and disbelief. Honestly, the things she had to hear. How was he her favorite person in the world? Joan honestly believed that if she were presented a choice between good sex or a good night’s sleep every night for the rest of her life, she’d choose the latter without hesitation. Yet here she was, irrevocably in love with (and legally bound to) a man who thought of sleeping as a necessary evil. Ridiculous. “You’ve been up since four AM, and you’re not an owl,” she reminded him. “Come here.”

Sherlock sighed as if enormously inconvenienced, but a second later the room was once again engulfed in darkness as the door clicked shut, and she listened with satisfaction to the soft sounds he made as he took off his shoes, stepped out of his jeans, unbuttoned his shirt and draped his discarded clothes over a chair. “I did not claim to be an owl,” he murmured defensively, as he slid under the covers with her.

Joan scooted a bit to her left to give him space. “Okay.”

“I shall merely take a short break.”

“Of course.”

“First thing tomorrow, Watson.”

“Sure,” she slurred indulgently, assuming he was referring to the tattoos but not entirely sure. Knowing the dizzyingly fast twists and turns of his mind, he might as well be talking about something completely different already, like getting a pet owl. Joan rolled over onto her left side and closed her eyes. After a while, she felt the mattress sigh and sink as Sherlock shifted closer.

“Ten years, Watson,” he said quietly, his voice full of wonder, as his fingers slowly tapped a short scale on her ribs. He had spoken in the general direction of her nape, as if he wanted to talk directly to her neurons through the back of her skull.

She yawned loudly. “ _London speed it up, Brooklyn rocket_ ,” she said over her shoulder, wagging an index finger sleepily to the tune in her head.

In the ensuing silence, she could practically hear Sherlock frowning. “I beg your pardon?”

“Beyoncé song.”

“Please explain further.”

Joan sighed, opened her eyes so she could roll them, and propped herself up on an elbow. “ _All that gossip, been ten years, stop it / London speed it up, Houston rocket_ ,” she recited. It was past midnight — she was not singing it. “I made a joke, Sherlock.”

“Yes, I assumed that was the intent, Watson, I just didn’t get the reference.”

“That’s because you only listen to classical music and those death metal bands Kitty keeps recommending.” (Kitty also loved Britpop —boybands and girlgroups that made up her more optimistic and uplifting Spotify playlists— but she had threatened Joan with unspeakable horrors if she breathed a word of that secret to anyone, Sherlock especially.)

“Guilty as charged. If you could only find it in you to forgive my appalling lack of pop culture knowledge…”

She made a noncommittal sound, mock-indecisive. “Yeah, well, you know a thing or two about some other stuff and you’re kinda nice-looking, so I guess I’ll let it slide.”

“You have my deepest gratitude.”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Of course, anything for my guy.”

Joan couldn’t be sure in the barely moonlit dark, but she thought she saw Sherlock mouthing the words _my guy_ in disbelief and smiling with that shy, perplexed delight he usually reserved for a particularly fascinating or unexpected turn in an investigation. “Ten bloody years, Watson,” he insisted.

“Yeah,” she agreed softly, meeting his gaze —or what she thought was his gaze— and holding it for a moment. She flopped onto her back. “Still want me to take that six weeks’ paid vacation?”

“Watson, I won't disagree that you deserve a vacation, but…” He scrunched up his nose, picked up her hand, kissed it and held it to his chest absently. “Not six weeks, please.”

She had only meant it as a joke, but she couldn’t blame Sherlock for taking it a little bit seriously, since she had fought hard for him to do so in the first place. On their fourth year living and working together, Joan had finally broken down and brought up the subject of vacations, knowing that she couldn’t let the relationship go further unless they set some boundaries that kept them from going crazy with emotional claustrophobia. Telling him had been one of the hardest things Joan had ever done, not least because she hardly knew how to put what she felt for him into words, but she had done her best to explain that while their life together, no matter the label, was everything to her, and the brownstone the only home she wanted, they also needed to preserve some form of personal space, of freedom _. Like stepping back to take in the full picture of your favorite painting_ , she had said, _and having that distance only reminds you of why you love it so much in the first place._ It had been a tough talk, what with Sherlock being low-key paranoid that she was only looking for an excuse to leave him permanently and constantly defensive about the consuming nature of their work. (Not to mention how bad she was at talking about her own feelings, if she was being perfectly honest.) After many such long talks, she had finally gotten him to agree that doing such intense, stressful work non-stop for months on end was probably a little bit unhealthy, and that it would be beneficial to take a break every now and then, whether separately or together.

Six weeks was overkill in Joan’s opinion —she was pretty sure she’d get bored out of her mind without detective work for a month and a half—, but she had in fact started to take days off, timidly at first, once or twice a year — a week here, mid-summer, to go see her mother’s relatives in San Francisco, a weekend there to go stay with Oren’s family in Boston, a day off for Christmas shopping with Mrs. Hudson in December, and so on. Sherlock had, so far, accepted this politely, without complaints but also without joining her, which worried Joan a little, but she knew that she couldn’t rush him. At least she had been able to convince him to take a day off for his birthday this year so they could spend it with Kitty, and she was mildly confident that she would start getting him to do it more frequently at some point, just like she had managed to get him to eat three meals a day —and real meals at that, not just moldy snacks or experimental turtle food—, leave the brownstone for a walk at least once a day, and sleep at least five hours a night even if it was on the futon or the red sofa instead of with her.

Joan shook her head and brought herself back to the present moment. “I’ll stick around if you stick around,” she promised amiably.

Sherlock was brushing a thumb across her knuckles in a slow, soothing manner. “I’d like nothing more.”

“Then we have a deal.”

Joan rolled over to her right side so her arm could rest more comfortably over Sherlock’s chest and decided to fall asleep before he could remember to let go of her hand.

 

—

 

A few months later, when Joan and Sherlock went to Boston for her brother’s birthday party, their matching tattoos officially made their grand social debut. Early in the evening, while Joan and Oren sat in the living room talking about work and comicbooks, Joan caught a glimpse of her nephews tugging on Sherlock’s sleeve to indicate that they wanted his attention. (Joan had talked to them early on, as soon as they were old enough to understand, about how some people didn’t like to be touched, and they should always ask if it was okay, and so on, and specifically asked her brother to remind them before every visit, and so far they had done a great job following those guidelines. Then again, Joan expected nothing less than perfect charm and civility from her nephews, since they were, after all, Oren’s sons and Mary’s grandsons. It was in their blood.)

Sherlock crouched to listen to the boys, then gave a quick gesture of assent, straightened back up and turned to look at her. He nodded in the direction of the stairs and Joan nodded back in agreement and he turned and trudged off after her nephews. A moment later, Joan winked at her brother and together they silently made their way upstairs to see what the other three were up to.

Oren and Joan stopped a few steps away from the boys’ bedroom. The door was half open and Joan guiltily pulled out her hand mirror and angled it just right so she and her brother could see what was going on inside. Sherlock was sitting cross-legged on the floor, sleeves rolled up and screwdriver in hand, apparently trying to dismantle a large robot T-Rex while her nephews made helpful suggestions. “That stupid dinosaur robot,” whispered Oren, watching the scene over her shoulder. “I can’t believe they asked him to fix it. Gabrielle’s gonna kill me.”

Joan remembered how excited the boys were when they got the T-Rex last Christmas, so she wasn’t surprised that they were resorting to Sherlock to get it working again. They couldn’t ask their own parents, of course, since Oren and Gabrielle were as gifted for mechanics as Joan herself was for cooking or Sherlock for small-talk — in short, not at all. Suddenly Jordan, the oldest, gave an excited little gasp and pointed to Sherlock’s forearm. “Uncle Sherlock, is that the _Watsonia_?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

It was a testament to Sherlock’s skill as an amateur tattoo artist that their bees had turned out tiny, delicate and beautiful, which in Sherlock’s case clashed loudly with the rest of his tattoos, nasty, colorful things which unfurled belligerently across his hips, arms and shoulders. Yet among them, on his left forearm, the diminutive  _Watsonia_   reigned queen. Joan should’ve known that clever, perceptive Jordan would be the first to spot it.

Sherlock nodded, gaze fixed on the small plastic lid he was detaching from the robot dinosaur in order to see what was inside of it. “Excellent observation, Jordan. We might just make a fine detective of you yet, if your mother will permit it.”

Joan could feel her brother shaking with silent laughter behind her, so she softly nudged him further back so he wouldn’t get them caught. Sherlock could probably tell that they were there, but her nephews didn’t need to know that half their family was eavesdropping on their privacy.

“So what does it mean?” asked Lee, the youngest, passing Sherlock a smaller screwdriver. Joan thought Sherlock would refuse to answer that, but Lee —whom Joan could say with total confidence and zero objectivity was the sweetest child she’d ever met— had an eerily calming presence that put everyone around him at ease.

Sherlock let his head loll to the side and tapped a nervous beat on his knee with the fingers of his free hand as he examined more closely the tiny electrical circuitry inside the toy’s green belly. “Sometimes I get… confused, or obsessed, and behave in ways that are harmful to myself or others,” he said eventually, keeping himself very still and not looking at either of the boys. “When that happens, people like me sometimes find it useful to remind ourselves of what matters in our lives, as a way of…” He waved the screwdriver in a small circle. “Getting back on track.”

Joan got a knot in her throat. Her nephews were watching Sherlock quietly from where they sat on their respective twin beds. Jordan nodded in understanding. “So the _Watsonia_ ’s a reminder,” he deduced, his tone serious.

Sherlock hummed his agreement as he tinkered with the wiring inside the toy dinosaur.

“Can we know what it reminds you of?” Lee asked gently.

Joan felt her body tense with anticipation and she half stepped back, thinking she had to go, stop trespassing in a moment that didn’t belong to her. She turned to tell her brother so, but Oren was gone, probably having decided the same thing instants before she did. Jordan’s voice reeled her back in, kept her rooted to the spot, pressed against the wall beside the doorway like a spy eavesdropping on the precious secrets of some royal family.

“Don’t be rude, Lee. He doesn’t have to tell us if he doesn’t want to.”

Sherlock gave a brief shake of the head. “No offense taken, gentlemen.” He reattached the lid with a few more turns of the screwdriver and set the dinosaur down on its hind legs. He sighed and bounced one of his knees up and down. “It’s a reminder of the best, most meaningful thing that ever happened to me.”

Jordan and Lee shared an intrigued glance. “What was it?”

“Meeting your Aunt Joan,” Sherlock stated simply, his eyes wistful and his mouth almost curling. “I realized that I was not alone in the world. And I found my best friend.” He fiddled anxiously with the screwdriver, then set it aside and switched on the toy dinosaur for want of something to do.

Joan was trying very hard not to cry, which was why she was caught completely off-guard and nearly cried out when the dinosaur came awake with a mighty screech and started to move awkwardly in the direction of Jordan’s bed. Sherlock started and the boys yelped in surprise and excitement as the dinosaur advanced, dramatically chanting, _I am the Saurian King! Make way for the Lizard King!_

Over her nephews’ excited giggles and the roaring of the toy, Joan heard Sherlock point out, “That’s not even entirely correct, from a paleontological perspective,” so naturally now she was laughing and weeping at once. She was startled again when she heard footsteps ascending and turned to find her sister-in-law standing at the top of the stairs, arching her eyebrows at Joan and listening with increasing concern to the sounds coming from her sons’ bedroom. “Did your husband just fix that damn thing?” she asked incredulously.

Joan shrugged apologetically. “Was he not supposed to?”

“Absolutely not.” Gabrielle thew her head back and groaned. “You know what, this is your brother’s fault for buying our children the most _terrifying_ toys on the market.” She rolled her eyes in frustration and arched her graceful hands to make strangling motions at the air. “Anyway, dinner’s ready. Tell the three musketeers over there to come downstairs. _Sans_ dinosaur, please.”

When Gabrielle headed off, Joan pushed the door open and popped her head into her nephews’ room. “Hey, guys. Dinner’s ready.”

“Auntie Joan!” Jordan jumped off the bed and scampered over. “The Lizard King is back!”

Joan glanced at the dinosaur, which was currently walking itself into the wall repeatedly and threatening to destroy the world, something that Lee seemed to find hysterical. She winked down at her nephew. “Nice. We’re totally gonna rewatch _Jurassic Park_ later, right?”

Both boys cheered at her suggestion as Sherlock watched them all in bemused puzzlement. Jordan high-fived her. “Best night ever.”

“Did you thank Sherlock for fixing the Lizard King?”

Sherlock frowned at her and shook his head, but both boys turned to him apologetically and thanked him in unison, after which they ran off to head downstairs. Sherlock shot to his feet and walked over to her. “Watson. I gather your sister-in-law is less than pleased with the tyrannosaurus’s resurrection?”

Joan side-stepped him to pick up the toy and turn it off so it wouldn’t run out of power, abruptly cutting off its menacing chant of _Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!_ “Yeah, Jordan and Lee think you’re the best, but you’re not Gabrielle’s favorite person right now.” She scrunched up her nose and smirked fondly at the ugly T-rex —she would have killed for one of those as a child— before setting it back down on the floor. “If it’s any consolation, you’re _my_ favorite person at all times.”

Sherlock took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Ah, my dear Watson.” He looked at her for a long moment like she held the Universe in place. “I am ecstatic to hear that.” He gently tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear and stooped gingerly to press a kiss to her cheek. “I shall remember this next time you call me ‘the worst roommate ever’ for waking you up at three in the morning.”

“Good.” Joan looped her arm through his and they set off for the stairs, remembering to switch off the lights in the bedroom and close the door after themselves. “You know, if you stopped waking me up for random experiments at three in the morning, I might like you even more.” Since she was still trying to get him to see the beauty of eight hours of sleep every night, she had only managed to negotiate a maximum of three interruptions of her sleep schedule a week.

Sherlock hummed doubtfully. “That doesn’t seem very feasible, Watson. However, I could instead build you your very own Lizard King for your next birthday.”

Joan barked out a short laugh and grinned up at him. “You’d build me a Lizard King?” she repeated, bizarrely moved and not giving a damn about how ridiculous they both sounded.

Sherlock bowed his head in assent and then leaned in a little closer to wink at her, playful and earnest at once. “Anything for my girl.”

 

  

 

> _the end_

**Author's Note:**

> A quick little fic for Nicola (@yonderdarling), who asked the very important question “when will sherlock get a tattoo to commemorate joan.” All credit for the concept here is, therefore, hers. This isn’t exactly what you wanted, I guess. I hope it doesn’t suck too much. 
> 
> Also, Angela (@14winters) wrote the bee-tattoo fic first, so I believe I owe her some credit as well, at least indirectly, even if I’m changing her headcanon to something slightly different. (Do check out her stuff! It's good!)
> 
> Stray observations:
> 
> 1\. This hasn’t been beta'ed so I apologize for any mistakes or inaccuracies. I’ll probably proofread it before posting it to Ao3.  
> 2\. I wanted both tattoos to be on the wrist/forearm but according to the screencaps of the show I’ve checked, JLM has big tattoos on both wrists and shoulders and also much of his arms, which if I’m not wrong only leaves small sections of his left arm and forearm as a potential locations for the Watsonia tattoo, however tiny it may be.  
> 3\. I made up a future timeline for this because I’m having a particularly Mentally Ill Week and didn’t feel like doing proper research into what would make the most sense. Hope @amindamazed, @beanarie and the rest of the smart people in the fandom won’t be mad at me. *laughs nervously*  
> 4\. This is disgustingly fluffy. I got carried away. I blame Nicola for giving me an excuse and Elementary itself for its abundance of beautiful Regency-romance-novel nonsense.  
> 5\. I don’t think we know exactly where Oren Watson and his family live, but there’s some indication that it may be Boston, so I went with that.  
> 6\. I have no excuse for that “Countdown” reference, but I also have no regrets.  
> 7\. This was first posted on my Tumblr so you may have seen it going around the #elementary tag.


End file.
